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A weekly Pokédex Podcast from Bald Man in Japan Luke Summerhayes. A different Pokémon family every week.
I’m Luke Summerhayes, and I love Durant.
Ants are remarkable creatures. Individually small, they construct enormous tunnel networks in which they live in colonies of tens or hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of individuals. Ants do different jobs from raising young, foraging for food or even farming fungi and domesticating other insects. It reflects human civilization, making it easy to anthropomorphize the insects. Individual ants are not so intelligent, rather it makes sense to think of the colony itself as an intelligent organism, with separate ants fulfilling their simple tasks.
While an individual ant is small and negligible to a human, they are incredibly strong in their own way. Ants can lift fifty times their own weight. This strength fascinates the human imagination, leading to superheroes like Spider-Man and horror movies like 1954’s Them! The Greek writer Herodotus spoke of giant ants the size of foxes that dug for gold. The largest ants alive today, though, are only 3 to 4 centimeters in length, found in Brazil. In prehistoric times, ants three or four times that size once lived, but nothing like the ants of cryptozoology or science fiction.
Pokémon’s largest ants are Durant, bug and steel monsters the size of large dogs. Insect bodies cannot grow to such sizes in the real world without being crushed by their own weight, but perhaps if ants could really have metallic bodies, this wouldn’t be an issue.
Shield
With their large mandibles, these Pokémon can crunch their way through rock. They work together to protect their eggs from Sandaconda.
The name Durant refers to a durable ant, while the Japanese name Aiant combines iron and ant, in a more fun pun I think.
Like real ants, Durant construct and maintain elaborate colonies.
White
Durant dig nests in mountains. They build their complicated, interconnected tunnels into mazes.
And also like real ants, within those colonies, individual Durant perform different roles.
Black 2
Individuals each play different roles in driving Heatmor, their natural predator, away from their colony.
White 2
Durant exists in constant contention with Heatmor, the anteater Pokémon we talked about last week. Most Pokédex entries mention their fire-type predator by name.
Black
They attack in groups, covering themselves in steel armor to protect themselves from Heatmor.
Sword
They lay their eggs deep inside their nests. When attacked by Heatmor, they retaliate using their massive mandibles.
Ironically though, while Durant is very weak to Heatmor’s attacks, it has a much more successful career as a competitive battling Pokémon. Durant is very weak to Heatmor’s fire attacks specifically, but bug and steel are good types overall. Durant lacks in defence and HP, but has excellent attack and speed. This attacking potential is enhanced by the ability Hustle, which ups attack while lowering accuracy, making Durant a gambler’s Pokémon. These gambles could be made sure things using Z moves in the seventh generation or Dynamax in the 8th, at which points Durant was a force to be reckoned with.
Real ants, luckily for the human race, are not as large as Durant nor made from metal. They do gamble their lives in battle though; ants will fearlessly defend their nest, knowing that if they fall, there are dozens of their siblings waiting to take their place. Last week I wondered if we might one day see our civilization meet a fate similar to that of many ant nests and termite mounds around the world. Perhaps I could counter by saying we will meet the threat head-on just as those little bugs always do.
Original music for Luke Loves Pokémon is by Jonathan Cromie. Artwork is by Katie Groves. Funding is provided by listeners at Patreon.com/PodcastioPodcastius. For just a dollar a month, supporters can listen to episodes a week early and also help cover hosting and fees, making it possible for me to keep making episodes every week.
I love hearing from listeners! Get in touch about upcoming Pokémon on twitter or facebook at LukeLovesPKMN. Drop a comment if you’re watching the video, or a review on apple podcasts or spotify. Coming up are Deino and Larvesta, so please get in touch about those or any other monsters.
Even if you don’t feel like doing any of that, thank you so much just for listening.
I love Durant. And remember, I love you too.